"You wont, that's certain, and glad I am, you ungrateful old beldam," said a decent looking woman, who was making her way through the crowd with a basket on her arm. "Who do you think will feed you, ungrateful wretches that you are, when the ladies are gone? Will the king, or the great lord or gentleman who gets the place, do ought for such as you, think you? No, indeed; not even broken crusts will you get, much less such an outfit as was given you last week." Then, catching sight of me, for I had come out upon some errand, I forget what, she continued: "Young lady, may I ask if Sister Elizabeth is still living—she who used to teach in the school?" "Oh, you mean she who is now the Sacristine?" said I, after a moment's thought, for I had never heard her called by that name more than once or twice. "Yes, she is living, but quite infirm." "Poor heart, and to be turned out in her old age—but that she shall not be, so long as Hester Lee has a roof over mun's head—that she shan't!" said the good woman. "Could 'ee bring me to speak with her, my lamb?" "Come with me," said I, rejoicing at her words, for I had been very unhappy about the poor old sister. I led the way to a little parlor, and the prioress passing at the moment I told her the woman's errand. "I am only a mariner's wife, keeping a shop for small wares in Dartford, madam," said the woman, in answer to the reverend mother's question, "but I have enough and to spare. I well remember the lady's goodness to me, a poor orphan maid, among people whose very tongue was strange to me, and who never had a kind word to sweeten the bread they grudged to their brother's orphan. Ah, madam, strange bread is bitter enough to those who have to eat it, without salting it with cold looks and harsh constructions." "Very true, my daughter," said the prioress; and she sighed. Poor lady, she was no doubt thinking how soon she might have to eat that salt and bitter bread herself. "And so, madam, by your leave, I have come to ask the old lady to spend the rest of her days under my roof, and she shall be as welcome as flowers in May, and so shall you yourself, madam, if you would honor me so far. I have a fine upper chamber, where you can be as secluded as you will, until you can make some arrangement more suited to your quality. Alas, madam, what have I done?" For our poor mother, who had not been seen to shed a tear in all our troubles, now burst into a passion of weeping such as I hardly ever saw, and all the more startling in one usually so calm. "You have done nothing but what is good and right," I whispered, mine own eyes overflowing. "The dear mother will be better for this relief."